


lucid

by orphan_account



Category: The L Word
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-10-14 21:04:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Shane confronts Carmen after Whistler.





	1. Lacerated

Shane's head is spinning as she hits the ground.

"Look at you, you're a mess!"

She looks up at him, but nothing wants to spring into focus. Fuck, that line of coke and flask of whiskey had been a mistake. It's a miracle she hasn't crashed the car into the house.

Pain courses through her body again as she tries and fails to get up again, but his rough grip on her arm propells her to her feet easily enough. He's shoving her towards the gate, screaming at her to not show her face around here again.

The front door opens and she freezes.

Carmen's face is a blank slate. "Let her go."

And they leave, skulking off into the house, one of them whispering something to Carmen that she brushes off with a brisk wave of her hand.

If not for Shane's hand on the gate, she would not be steady on her feet. There are invisible hands wrapping themselves around her neck, choking the air out of her burning lungs.

"This should be rich. What the fuck could you possibly have to say to me?"

She's stepped closer. Should she reach her arm out, she could catch a strand of her hair between her fingers.

Instead, she grips the gate tighter.

The vacant stare is worse. She wishes for the fury, the wild gestures, the spray of the fire extinguisher. Anything that isn't this stillness.

"I-"

"Here is what is going to happen, Shane." She cuts her off and the invisible force is strangling her again. "You are going to explain to me exactly why you left. Then you are going to leave and never come back."

Even her tone of voice is all wrong. Shane wants to tell her that, tell her that she deserves to laugh and be deliriously happy, not distant and unfeeling, wants to beg for her forgiveness, to bury her face in her shoulder and forget all the things even the drugs had not managed to wipe from her mind.

Yet she finds herself recounting the last time she spoke to her father. 

"I couldn't have the same thing happen to us. I-"

"Shut up."

She takes her in, arms crossed before her chest, unmoving, her face betraying nothing.

"I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses. You let the man you've known for two days after he abandoned you convince you that you're just as much of a waste of a human being as he is and, maybe, he's right. Just tell me one more thing. Why did you propose? Was it just because of Dana?"

Her voice never wavers and Shane snaps.

"No, it wasn't because of Dana. There is no 'just' there. Losing one of my best friends woke me up. It made me realize that I didn't want to lose what I had. This is on me. Don't you fucking use her to make a point."

The hoarse whisper had risen to a shout, all timidness gone. She could attack and blame her all she wanted, she deserved it, but Dana was too far.

A flicker of emotion passes over Carmen's face and she hesitates.

"I know that. I crossed the line."

She bows her head and for a moment, Shane thinks she sees her hands shake as she brushes stray wisps of hair out of her eyes.

"She was my friend, too."

She wants to take a step forward, put her arms around her, touch her. She remains frozen to the ground.

Carmen meets her gaze again, the cold and dismissive air dissolved to leave her eyes vulnerable and it would have hurt less to take her cousin's fists again. She lowers her arms to her side.

"Where did you go?"

Her voice cracks at the end of the question and Shane feels light-headed with elation.

"I got on a bus. I didn't care where I was going, I just couldn't- I couldn't see anyone. I got off at the beach and pretty much was too wasted out of my mind to remember anything."

The expression on Carmen's face is clear disgust, but she also spots traces of worry as she asks what exactly she'd had in her system.

"Fuck if I know. Cherie-"

"Cherie Jaffe?"

All of Carmen's walls are up again in an instant and Shane feels as if she is drowning.

She reaches out, tries to grasp Carmen's wrist, keep her from leaving when she whirls around her world is spinning again.

Her cheek stings and Carmen pushes her away against the gate. The tears in her eyes only give the hard line of her mouth a sharper edge.

" _Fuck you_."

Shane runs towards her again, an explanation as to how it's not what she thinks on her tongue. Carmen raises her right hand once more, ready to lash out at any second.

"Leave." 

The fury in her voice has her stop dead in her tracks and she knows she means it, she wants her gone.

She stumbles to the car, watches Carmen disappear in the house with the door shut behind her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The colors of the traffic lights blur together. She can't remember the last time she's cried.

* * *

Her mother approaches her immediately, her mouth letting loose a barrage of insults on Shane McCutcheon and her entire family. It's a wonder she has any left that she has yet left unsaid. Her cousins watch her, ready to wreak havoc at a single word.

Carmen shuts them all out, walking past their questions and demands and open arms to her room. The headphones bring her a sense of isolation and silence.

She drags her gaze away from the window, but she still hears the sound of an engine being turned on and the screeching of tires.

She wants to scream, to turn up the volume of her music so loud they drown out her thoughts, the ghost of Shane's lips against the hollow of her throat, the feeling of white crinoline on her skin, the memory of disbelief and snickering at how they all couldn't believe that it wasn't a joke, that she had actually concocted a scheme to make the infamous womanizer settle down.

_Piece of fucking shit._

Carmen falls back on her bed.

The image of Cherie Jaffe's condescending smile won't leave her head as she sits in the chair, regarding her as if she is an inconvenience, a fly buzzing around her head the mere presence of which has her in a state of mild annoyance. The picture of Shane's face as the water pours over her body, her eyes wide and pleading as she meets her gaze in the bathroom mirror flickers against her closed eyelids. Shane, sobbing, half-collapsed against the bridge as she hears herself say yes. The flash of her teeth as she grins, a promise to show her exactly what she's learned at her bachelorette party.

She rips the headphones off. They shatter against the wall.


	2. Lurid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmen meets an old friend.  
> Shane comes home.

The whispers and concerned looks thrown her way soon prove too much and Carmen drives her truck to the nearest supermarket. There is nothing in particular she is looking for, except space far away from prying eyes and loaded questions she has no answers to.

_How do you feel after seeing her again, Carmencita?_

She doesn't know and knowing would make it easier, somehow. All that she is certain of is that she is sick of surprise visitors for the foreseeable future.

The chips in aisle five are looking delicious when the sound of a familiar voice startles her and she sees her. She curses under her breath as she turns around.

"Hey, Robin."

She hasn't even finished her responding greeting yet, but it's obvious that she knows. Still, she lets her make her hollow statement about how she's heard about what happened and how she is oh so sorry.

Damn the gossips of the West Hollywood area lesbians. At least Alice has had the decency and sense to keep the whole affair out of her radio talkshow.

Carmen sighs. "I'm okay."

What she _wants_ to say is that the pity in her eyes makes her almost as sick as the complete lack of surprise in her tone, because if it had been common knowledge to absolutely everyone around her how their trip to the mountains of Canada was going to end, why the fuck had no one bothered to tell Carmen?

"Do you-"

"No. Another time, maybe, but thanks." She has no desire to relive the utter humiliation and devastation in the company of the woman she's used more for the sake of hurting her ex-fiancee rather than sex. Old feelings of regret creep back in, so she grabs the bag of snacks from the shelf and makes her way to the cash register. 

At home, they leave her be for the time being and she is grateful.

She gets a phonecall from a nearby club, tiny, not very popular who has just opened a few days ago, but she jumps at the offer to play their venue. Distractions of any kind are welcome, even more so when she opens her wardrobe to pick out an outfit that doesn't consist of a washed out T-shirt and sweatpants and she spots the white dress on the hanger that she's been given back after the _cinceñera_ since they'd both known she would never wear it again when she could make do with jeans and a wifebeater.

Carmen jams the frilly thing into the back of a cupboard holding clothes she hasn't worn in ages, clothes she has no need for anymore and makes her way to the club. It doesn't take her long to arrive there, seeing as it is not nearly as far from her house as the Planet and that is how she likes it.

Despite a less than packed dancefloor, the people seem to love her music. 

It's close to two in the morning when her shift ends and she is just about to head home to get a good night's sleep, when she feels a warm hand on her shoulder.

"Carmen?"

She hasn't seen her since prom and would not have expected to meet her around here. "Papi, hi!"

"Come, have a drink with me."

She grins. "Sure."

The beer bottle is blessedly cool in her hands and the questions pour out of her out of their own accord.

"How are you? When did you move here?"

Eva Torres laughs, following up the shot of tequila with a bite into a lemon. "Not long ago. It's great here."

She sips her own drink. "Yeah, it's not so bad."

"I am having a lot of fun with this website, what is it called, OurChart? Never thought I'd have any competition."

"Yeah, I remember you chasing all the girls." It's not a memory she wants to dwell on for the time being. The image of her apologetic shrug, her airy remark about her lack of plans, the girl planting kisses on her cheek, it's all too close to comfort, branded in her memory.

A wink that brings her back to the present. "Hey, you had a good time."

There is no denial she can give to that.

A smug tone enters Papi's voice. "But this Shane McCutcheon has got nothing on me."

Carmen freezes, the bottle halfway to her mouth, her tongue temporarily glued in place.

Papi raises an eyebrow. "What, you know her or something?"

She must be nodding, but it is a mechanical function. She feels numb.

"What, she didn't return your calls or something?"

"She stood me up at the altar."

Papi signals the bartender to bring them a bottle of vodka, the good stuff, and has Carmen put her drinks on her tab.

* * *

Shane can't think, can't put her thoughts in order, so she asks Shay to come along for the time being, taking him by the hand, careful not to step into any glass bottles. Fuck, what state has the kid seen Carla in these past few days? And where has she gone?

They get on a bus, the driver eyeing her with unhidden suspicion until he sees her brother. That seems to convince him that she is not about to cause any trouble.

She crouches down to ruffle Shay's hair, trying her best to keep her voice steady. It would not do to have the kid freak out on her.

"Wait here for a second, okay?"

He's silent, which makes her queasy, but first things first.

Her prayers are answered when she finds the spare key under the doormat.

She opens the front door, gesturing for her brother to come along, keeping her foot steps as light as possible when a light turns on in the hallway.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Shane closes her eyes for a moment, the dizzyness returning.

"Jen-"

She steps out of the door frame. Her hair is still as long and black as she remembers, her blue eyes flashing with unveiled hurt. She looks so small with her arms wrapped around herself, a blanket thrown around her shoulders over her nightgown.

"Shane, where the hell were you? Why didn't you call? Why did you  _leave?_ Wh-"

The writer seems to notice Shay then and lets out a gasp. "Oh my god, Shane-"

"It's my brother Shay. Carla, she- she left him on the porch. I-"

"No, yes, of course, just-" She moves her hands in a gesture that could mean everything and nothing and keeps quiet for as long as it takes Shane to lie him down on her bed, whisper at him to sleep and close the door.

She walks to the kitchen and sits down on a chair.

Jenny takes the place opposite her, rubbing at her eyes as if she will wake up in her bed at any moment, the dream dissolving into thin air.

She meets her eyes, her voice cold.

 "Where did you go?"

"Cherie Jaffe's."

"How didn't it occur to you to call, to tell anyone of us where you were, if you were okay? We didn't know if you were alive!"

"I was so out of it, Jenny. Cherie, she- she had a bunch of coke. We got high. I threw my phone into the ocean. I crashed her car."

"And the first thing you did was visit Carla?"

She grips at the edge of the table, but is still blurs together into an incoherent mess in front of her eyes. "No. I saw Carmen."

She hears Jenny draw in a sharp breath.

"I tried- fuck, I don't know what I was trying to do. She has every right to hate me. She told me to leave and not come back. That's when I went to see Carla. She- she was wasted, Jenny. She told me she had a present for me, but when I saw- she'd disappeared."

Shane flinches when Jenny wraps her arms around her, but clings to her when she feels her roommate's fingers in her hair, drawing soothing circles against her scalp.

Her voice is soft. "I haven't forgiven you, Shane. What you did was horrible. But I'm sorry."


	3. Lapiz Lazuli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane reunites with the group.  
> Carmen goes on a date.

Shane wakes up at the sound of something crashing. She sits up with a start, the blood rushing from her head, her eyes not yet adjusted to the brightness of morning.

"What the hell?"

The sight of a shell-shocked Max greets her.

"When did you arrive?"

His voice is surprisingly steady, for all that he has to sweep up the shards of the dropped and broken coffee mug from the floor.

She squints, trying to remember. Time hadn't mattered for days now, but now that she is sober again she supposes it must. The kick of the cocaine is a thing to miss, especially when she remembers Carmen's face as she told her to leave and it is no wonder Carla went under. In whatever ditch she is, Shane hopes she is too high right now to remember how she left her son on his own. She doesn't think Carla is the sort of person who could deal with the guilt without it driving her over the edge and at least even a junkie mother can have their child's love, the way a dead woman couldn't. She should know.

"Sometime around three in the morning?"

Jenny enters the living room, phone in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. 

"Would you keep it down? Shay's still asleep and we shouldn't wake him up."

Shane answers Max's silent question before he has the chance to ask it. "He's my little brother. Half-brother."

Their roommate settles down on the couch, unceremoniously shoving Shane to the side to curl up against the pillows, sipping at her drink with calm even as the shrill sound of the doorbell startles those around her.

"Oh, by the way, I told the group the joyous news, Shane. This must be them."

She glares at Jenny. "What-"

"Who wants bagels?"

The open door, courtesy of Max, reveals Alice with a large paper bag, the smell of which is sure to prompt an affirmation from anyone with a functioning stomach.

Still, Shane feels sick.

"Hey, Al." 

The radio commentator turns to her, dumping the bagels on the nearest flat surface in her vicinity. 

"Shane." 

She does not expect for Alice to jank her into a standing position and to halfway squeeze the life out of her.

"You're back."

"Yeah." 

 She just hugs her, doesn't ask her any questions, not yet. Shane is grateful.

"Helena is going to be here in a minute, she was still in the shower when I was going out. I'd have waited, but she said to go ahead-"

"Wait, what is Helena doing at your place?"

"She's been living with me since she got disowned."

"Helena got  _what?"_

Alice grimaces. "Yeah, Peggy cut her off from the family fortune after the fourteen million dollars she spent on... you know."

Shane crumples onto the couch again, burying her face in Jenny's shoulder. "Shit. How am I ever going to make this up to her? I- ah, fuck."

"Speak of the devil."

Helena Peabody looks as if she's been through hell, her otherwise perfectly styled hair disheveled. She doesn't think she's ever seen the woman in casual clothes before, but now she is wearing  _sweatpants._

"Sorry I'm late."

Shane approaches her, hands raised in surrender. "Helena, I'm so s-"

The Englishwoman shakes her head. "It's not your fault. I wanted to spend that money. This way my mother has just done something sooner rather than later."

Another ring of the doorbell, followed by the sound of Jenny's voice.

"Hi, you guys!"

Bette and Tina enter the living room, both looking ready to scratch someone's eyes out, preferably each other's.

"Well, is this going to be a communal fucking breakfast or what?" The art curator snaps, looking far more intimidating than a person brandishing a package of cheese should.

Tina huffs, marmelade cradled against her stomach. "I still can't believe you were going to send  _Joyce_ after me. Angelic-"

"Guys!" Alice interrupts, waving her arms dramatically. "Focus!"

Bette puts her milk-based weapon on the kitchen table. Her expression softens as she meets Shane's gaze.

"How are you?"

Shane scratches the back of her neck. "My head is killing me."

Tina sighs. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"How about we do this with some food in our system?" Max suggests just as Jenny gets up from the couch to brew more coffee.

One bagel each later, Shane finds herself regurgitating the same story she'd told Jenny a few hours before, up until the point where she combed through both the streets of Portland and the phonebook to find either Carla or her father with no success. 

Bette winces at the conversation with Carmen. "I'm sorry, Shane."

Tina's voice is bitter. "Oh, yeah, poor Shane, who got left by her fiancee at the altar in the middle of nowhere in Canada. Let's all hear it for her."

"Shut the fuck up, Tina."

Shane looks at Jenny. "I thought you haven't forgiven me?"

The writer gives a faint smile. "You're my best friend."

"How fucking touching. But have you thought what you are going to do about your brother yet?"

She groans. "Don't remind me, Tina. I have no idea what I'm going to do."

Alice raises her coffee mug in a toast as if it is a champagne flute. "We'll help you out in any way we can."

Shane looks around the table. None of the faces watching her are happy, but no one jumps in to negate Alice's promise and it is the least she can do to pay for everyone's drinks at the Planet later that night, Shay being too preoccupied with their movie collection to show much of a reaction she had told him she would be back in an hour at most and to call her immediately if he needed anything.

She is just finishing her beer when she hears her name being called.

"Yeah?"

The stranger in front of her is regarding her with distaste and she wonders just what she has managed to fuck up without even meeting her.

"You're the one who ran out on my girl Carmen?"

* * *

Her name is Lucia.

Carmen could hardly believe her ears when she first heard her mother propose, however tentatively, to set her up with another girl. She'd hugged her to not let her see her daughter tear up, because this had been different than the excitement and wonderful tradition of a wedding that had gathered their acceptance in the first place. This was calm, collected, thoughtful and utterly dependent on her relatives coming to terms with her being gay. She had cringed at her mother's insistence of calling Shane the groom, but now she is simply fed up with the inward sensation of her organs being put through a meat grinder whenever she relives the memories that used to tie her ex-fiancee to her family. She is tired beyond belief of the pain and anger and crushing disappointment and bile in her throat that have become her silent companions.

By any standards, she is ready to go out into the world again and grasp at the opportunities present.

She feels only a pang of guilt for running her date's name through OurChart and a whole lot of relief that the two of them seem to have both different social circles and a lack of an intersection concerning romantic partners. If there would have been, she knows she would have called it off immediately.

The café they meet at is snug and the coffee mild.

She's pretty, her skin tan, her hair black, her cheeks red when she smiles and calls out a greeting. 

Turns out both of them can agree that ice cream tastes best in scones, especially when eaten during a stroll on a sunny day and it totally still counts as a coffee date if the scoop is coffee-flavored.

There is something about Lucia, a way of bowing her head with a small smile playing on her lips that is familiar in a sense Carmen can't quite put her finger on, but she likes her. She is nibbling at her scone as Lucia laughs at a retelling of one particular accident at her day job involving hot chocolate and a celebrity she couldn't name without legal persecution when she spots an antique shop. It's tiny and quaint, beckoning her to the store window with necklaces made of colorful gemstones.

"You should try one of them on. I bet they would look great on you."

Carmen smiles, and soon enough the shop owner is handing them a number of necklaces to try on. She settles for one made of rose quartz when Lucia offers to help her put it on.

She sees her fussing with her hair behind her shoulder as she looks into a mirror, brushing the curls aside to neatly fasten the necklace at the back.

A surprised gasp. "Oh, you have a tattoo. It's beautiful. What does it mean, if you don't mind me asking?"

The air in the shop seems incredibly stuffy.

"A mistake."

Carmen frees the jewellry from her and hands it back to the shop owner with a muttered thank you and a wish for her to have a good day.

Lucia is quiet until they arrive at a park, where she all of a sudden starts recounting a story of her childhood when she used to chase the swans at the lake and she laughs and conversation flows easy again afterwards.

She walks her to the door in the evening and her lips are soft when Carmen kisses her.

Her mother's face is radiant when she sees Carmen walk into the kitchen, her mouth full of questions. She tells her that she is going to call her and thanks her once more for setting the date up in the first place.

She is feeling happy, feet light on the linoleum, her head empty with lazy contentment.

Her eyes fall on the Benny More CD on her shelf when the memories flood back and she sees Lucia's face on which there seems to be etched an eternal surprise and doubt that it is her that she likes. The realization knocks the air out of her lungs.

Lucia reminds her of Jenny.

Carmen doesn't want to do this again. She can't.

Much as Jenny had never harbored a grudge against her for how their relationship had ended, she still regrets it. Most of all, she hates the emptiness of it in retrospect.

Lucia doesn't deserve to be the girl who is easy to hang around with, a glorified distraction.

Shane fucking McCutcheon doesn't deserve the honor of breaking a heart all over again with nothing more than her shadow.

Since running from her ghost does not seem to be an option, she might as well face her demons.

She gathers it all in a pile - Benny More CDs, the white dress, the photos from Max's fundraiser, the rings Helena had put into her hands in silence. She goes through the pile of memories, searching, seeking explanations, hunting for signs, for cracks that should have tipped her off.

There is one thing. One more step until there is nothing left for her to confront and the freedom to start fresh within arm's reach. She could call Lucia, plan that second date. She could see someone else.

She could move on.

Carmen tiptoes along the corridor, careful not to wake her family. The inside of her car is cold, but the drive is over before she knows it.

With each step that she takes towards the front door, she feels stronger. She knows exactly what she means to say.

She rings the doorbell and watches as the door opens to reveal a little boy.


	4. Left field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane and company have a talk with Papi.  
> Carmen's expectations don't coincide with reality.

Carmen stares. Neither of them seem to know what to say.

"I-" She gulps, careful to keep her voice soft and quiet. "I'm sorry, but have you seen Shane?"

He scratches his head. "My sister said she will be back soon, but I could call her-"

"Oh, no, no, thank you, Shay."

"How do you know my name?"

_Shit, shit, shit._

She hopes Gabriel McCutcheon chokes on all the money he mooched off Helena. And where the hell is Carla?

"Are you a friend of my sister?"

She smiles and hopes it looks only half as shaky as it feels. "Yes, yes, I am. I'm Carmen."

He frowns, leaning his head to the side. "Were you at my sister's wedding?"

If not for the support of the wall, her legs would give out. Her throat is constricted when she asks just what he has heard.

Shay hesitates. "My parents said they were going to Shane's wedding for the weekend. I stayed with my friend Kyle. Yesterday Shane came to the house and we came here. She cried. She didn't think I knew, but I heard her."

Carmen's nails are digging into the flesh of her palms, gnashing her teeth to keep a grim smile from tugging at the corners of her mouth. The feeling of naked spite in the pit of her stomach burns hotter than tequila. 

Good. Let her cry. Let her walk in Carmen's shoes for a while, see how she likes it.

She runs her hands over her face, trying to put her whirling thoughts in order. 

"Look, I'm sorry I interrupted-" She spots the television over Shay's shoulder, the screen currently flashing images of a pizza commercial. "Your movie night. I'll just wait for her out here and you go back inside, okay?"

He nods, about to shut the door.

"Wait."

The boy turns around, confusion written over his features. 

"Can I watch the movie with you? We'll make some popcorn and have fun, alright?"

He smiles and as Carmen is scouring the kitchen for edible snacks, nothing having changed since she had last stood there, she curses herself. She had wanted nothing more than to burn any bridges left, banish Shane from her life once and for all, sever any lingering attachments, but her favorite pillow on the couch is still as comfortable as she remembers and the blanket smells of safety and there is something about the kid that signals how lost he is. 

The resemblance is striking. They are so clearly siblings.

* * *

"Who are you?" Jenny interjects, wrapping an arm around Shane's shoulder.

"You can call me Papi. So-"

"Hold on,  _you're_ Papi?" Alice pipes up, her expression one of awe. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"Who the hell is Papi?" Helena asks, her frown deepening with every spoken sentence.

"Someone who knows Carmen, apparently." Bette remarks, sipping her margarita.

"Oh, Helena, you know OurChart? You don't? Okay, it doesn't matter. The point is, Papi is the legendary hub who has slept with, I think it was one thousand five hundred and fifty four girls last week? That's over five hundred more than Shane."

Helena's jaw drops open. "I- what-"

Papi winks at her before turning her gaze back to Shane.

"So, skinny little white girl, you're the one who bailed on Carmen?" She scoffs. "She deserves better than you."

Shane wants to open her mouth, to snarl at her how she has no fucking ground to stand on judging her without knowing her in the slightest, but she cannot. She hears Jenny asking Papi how the hell she's even found them in the first place, but the words are muffled so that she might as well have been underwater. Her head is spinning.

"I asked around. You're not hard to find. Vanilla is pretty damn popular around here." A snort. "For some reason."

"How do you know Carmen, exactly?" Helena asks.

Papi shrugs. "We go back."

"Did she send you?"

She laughs. "No way, man. She'd probably throw something at me if she knew I was here." She pointedly takes a swig from Shane's beer, draining the bottle. "I wanted to see my competition."

"And?" Jenny narrows her eyes.

"I'm not impressed."

"Well, fuck you."

Shane swallows and her voice is hoarse. "Jen, stop."

Papi raises an eyebrow. "Huh, you realized you made the biggest damn mistake of your life yet?"

She doesn't answer, her hands shaking as she searches her pockets for her car keys. 

"I have to go."

"Of course you do, Vanilla. Yo-"

Shane nudges Jenny, the car keys in her hands a silent request. The writer nods, flipping off Papi for good measure as she hops down from her stool, sliding the Cosmopolitan she hadn't yet touched over to Alice. 

"I've left Shay on his own long enough as it is. I should have stayed home."

She looks back over her shoulder as they reach the exit of the Planet, blowing the blonde radio personality a kiss for distracting their new acquaintance. Her "competition".

As if Shane has nothing else to worry about than a stupid row of numbers on OurChart.

Jenny's arm is around her waist as they take the steps up to the front porch and the front door swings open with the turn of a key.

She doesn't see her at first. Shay is right there, snuggled against a pillow, on the verge of sleep, and Shane smiles. 

"-mmm, you're back?"

She doesn't answer, doesn't say anything, doesn't utter a single word. Cannot. She is certain she must have imagined it, the familiar voice a hallucination. Her limbs are frozen in place.

Jenny releases her grip on her waist to run over to the couch. "Oh my god, Carmen?"

The blanket falls away from the half-hidden shape next to her brother and if it is a hallucination, then it turns out Cherie's stuff wasn't nearly as fucking strong as whatever Kit is serving at the Planet now.

Her roommate puts a hand on Shay's shoulder and whispers something in his ear. She takes him by the hand and leads him to the back door, her eyes as wide and wild as a deer's.

"Um, we're just going to be over at Bette's for a bit. She has a huge pool, Shay, it's really cool. Come on!"

And as quick as that, they're alone.

"Are you just going to stand there?"

Shane closes her eyes, exhales, and slowly, slowly shuts the front door. Her back is to the living room when she tells her no.

"Look at me."

She does.

Carmen's hair is tousled, her eyes still dull with the lingering embrace of sleep that has not yet let go, her cheeks flushed with warmth. She clutches the blanket to her chest with an air of embarrassment and judging from the too large jersey thrown over the sheer white shirt and shorts and the one haphazard flip-flop dangling off her foot, her visit had been an impromptu endeavor after she had already decided to go to bed.

She is so beautiful.

"I was wondering, you know. Where I could have stopped it. At what point I could have seen it and left."

Shane collapses on the opposite sofa, not trusting her tongue to cooperate. Her mouth is dry.

"And?" She mouths more than she speaks it out loud, but Carmen still seems to get her meaning.

"There's the proposal. You didn't really think any of it through, Shane, and I know you mean the things you say, but in that instance, there was Dana. She threw off the balance. I never should have answered the question. It was the wrong time for a relationship of six months. Your first real commitment! And then we all lost a very dear friend and-" 

She gulps and rubs at her eye too aggressively for it to be leftover drowsiness she wants to rid herself of. With every word her grip on the script she had apparently run through in her head a number of times seems to slip.

"Cherie Jaffe? No, look at me! You can say that sometimes sex is just meaningless, but if someone cheats, I think there's a fucking problem there."

"I told you I was sorry and I would try, Carmen! I didn't touch her after that! Or anyone. I was faithful."

"You just ran back to her beach house when you left me at the fucking  _altar._ "

Shane is on her feet. "I went to her for the damn  _drugs_. I know you won't believe me, but the only thing I wanted was to get high and forget. I couldn't care less if she wanted me to fuck her again."

Carmen's laugh is mocking. "You tell me you're a junkie and want a pat on the back for not fucking your ex? Is this supposed to make me think you're a good person?"

She crumples on the chair again, her hands ripping at the roots of her hair. "Fuck. No. No, none of that. I am just saying that she had absolutely nothing to do w-"

"I know."

"And Robin?"

"Yeah, I slept with her to get back at you. But I at least wanted to talk about it! When you cheated, you said it wasn't a big fucking deal!"

"I got over it, didn't I?"

"You didn't speak to me all day, asked me if I felt good about myself now and we fucked. Is that how you solve all your problems?"

"I knew you just wanted to piss me off. I wasn't angry about Robin, I was pissed because you didn't do it because you wanted to, you did it out of spite. That's not the same damn thing. And don't act like you were a saint. My father is full of shit, but how could you blame me for wanting a family when I finally had the option to have one?"

"You had my family!"

"I had your family until you threw our relationship in their face and they threw us both out. Then you were so nice as to remind me that I didn't know anything about family."

Carmen winces. "How long could you have gone on like that? Until they saw real life wedding rings and still thought we were nothing more than friends?"

"All I wanted was a fucking warning, that's all."

"You know, no one I talked to was surprised that you didn't go through with it. I was just the one idiot not in on the joke."

Shane grimaces. "They don't know me."

She snorts. "Oh, they do. A lot of them, actually. Hooked up with any Janices and Emmas lately?"

"Don't. They have nothing to do with this. You knew my deal when you met me. What else?"

She's let go of the blanket, the fuzzy material gathering in her lap as she sits upright. "What else? Shane, you knew how I felt, you had it on a fucking video tape! And it took you, how long to ask me out in the first place?"

"You and Jenny had just broken up!"

She snorts. "I was an asshole to Jenny. You knew exactly how I felt about what we had. I told you. You can't tell me you didn't watch that damn tape more than once."

Shane's hands are twitching, so she buries them in her pocket to take out a cigarette to light and puts it between her teeth.

Carmen's shoulders are shaking and for a moment she is about to throw boundaries and caution to the wind to hug her when she hears her frantic laugh.

"But what the hell was I expecting, right? I chased you and you told me you didn't want to get involved. You were honest. No emotions. You had your head between my legs within five minutes of us meeting but you couldn't bring yourself to tell me if you ever had a sibling or a pet because that crossed the line, that would have just been  _too personal._ "

She takes a drag, exhaling to watch the smoke ascend to the ceiling in a drunken path. "You lied when you said you were cool with it."

"Of course I did! Do you know what I said to Jenny the first time we met?"

Shane leans forward, startled. "Wait, you met before that party at the Planet?"

She is playing with a strand of her hair, eyes not quite meeting hers as she reminisces. "Yeah. I was in my underwear and looking for something to drink in the fridge. I asked her what would show that I cared more, beer or soy milk." She pauses. "Jenny recommended the soy milk."

"You brought beer." She can't help the hint of a smirk forming on her lips as she inhales again.

Carmen rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, soy milk isn't very sexy."

Shane flicks the ashes off her blazer, watches the tip of the cigarette glow in the semi-dark as the silence stretches on.

"Why are you doing this? Why are you here? You told me to leave and not come back. I wasn't going to bother you anymore."

She is hugging her legs, her chin resting on her knees. She looks like a glass statue. "I thought- I couldn't ignore you to get you out of my head. I needed to see you."

She puts the cigarette out on the ash tray and coughs into her fist. "So what?"

Carmen's voice is shaky when she breathes her name.

"Shane."

She pinches the bridge of her nose because looking at her fucking  _hurts._

"Yeah?"

"What do you want?"

What does she expect to hear? That she wants her back? That she begs for her forgiveness? That she misses her warmth next to her when she wakes up? That no drugs have fucked her up as badly as her own mistake of following in her father's footsteps? That her friend Papi was right, that she deserves better and that she should go?

"I don't want you to hate me."

Carmen sighs.

"I don't think I can promise you that."


	5. Long Shot

A glance at the clock shows it to be around two in the morning by the time Jenny returns to the house, tip-toeing around the corridor to put Shay to bed.

„Carmen! Hi." There is surprise in her voice as to how she is still here, but also a sense of pleasure.

"Let me just-" She looks down at Shay, who looks about ready to fall asleep on his feet.

Carmen interjects. "No, of course. I'm not going anywhere. We have all the time to talk."

The writer nods, returning a few moments later to sit down on the couch next to her, cross-legged, her elbows resting on her knees to in turn support her head. Her eyes are wide and bright in the dimly lit living room as she regards her with rapt attention.

"How are you?"

Hesitation laces her tongue with lead, as if there was a foreign object behind her teeth obstructing the words struggling to form in the air. "I am alright. I've moved back in with my mother, but it's only until I can find another place." She chuckles. "There are only so many hours I can spend in that house without the noise of so many people driving me insane."

Jenny blinks. "Do you think you're going to move back into Hollywood? I could ask Helena if she knows any nice apartments. She might actually need a roommate right about now."

"What?  _Helena?_ Why would she need a roommate? Isn't her house twice as big as yours and it's just for her?"

The author bows her head, black tresses flowing down her shoulders to reach the tips of her fingers as she wrings her hands. "Her mother disowned her. Cut her off from the family fortune."

"Oh my god." She pauses, the suspicion dawning on her with gooseflesh on her neck. "Was it because of the wedding?"

Jenny takes her hand as she hears her voice crack at the final word. "Don't worry about it. Helena is spoiled, but she is smart and she will be fine. She  _is_ fine. She's been living with Alice the past few weeks, actually."

"Huh. I should probably call her then."

In the silence, she feels she can hear echoes. Memories. Get-togethers, drinking games, parties that inevitably ended in Bette's pool. The splash of water, the popping of a champagne bottle, the sound of laughter over a spectacular loss at poker.

She shakes her head and smirks. „I've missed you. I've missed the group, all of them."

„I know and I'm sorry we didn't reach out. It's just, so much shit has happened the last few days, and Shane- how are you guys, anyway?"

Her stomach is in knots. „I can't be around Shane a lot right now."

Jenny seems momentarily lost in her own head, her gaze losing focus while she combs through her hair. It really has grown back very quickly. „I get that. But can- can I say something?"

She frowns. „Of course."

„Speaking as someone who once got married on a whim, believe me when I say that it's better this way than if you'd gotten hitched with one of you not knowing for sure if they wanted to go through with it."

She bows her head, front teeth glinting in the dim light of the living room as they catch at her bottom lip. „I'm pretty sure Tim's parents will never speak to me again. I fucked up."

Carmen opens her mouth to interrupt when Jenny holds up her hand. „I know that's not what it was with you guys. You love each other so much, everyone can see it. Shane is not the kind of person to promise a commitment she can't keep."

„Oh, really?" There is a sour taste in her mouth.

She winces. „No, Carmen-"

„I get it, you know. She's your best friend, you're going to take her side on this, I-"

„I'm not on Shane's side. Shane isn't even on Shane's side. I don't think she's ever regretted something this much in her life."

Suddenly, the look in her eyes becomes wild as they search the room.

"Where _is_ she?" Her voice has dropped to a stage-whisper. 

Carmen picks at the edges of the blanket in her lap as she recalls the look on her face as she shut the front door with a mumbled explanation, the ring of keys slipping towards the ground only to be caught again before impact. Her hectic motions, her shaking hands, the image of an animal locked in a cage.

"She went out to get cigarettes."

"How long ago was that?" Jenny asks, her voice quiet and thick with worry.

"Not long ago, ten minutes maybe." She sighs. "I should probably go."

"Stay if you want."

"I can't."

Her ex-girlfriend nods, the empty space where words clearly linger unspoken encompassing all the reasons why she has to refuse. "Okay. Write me a text when you get home, please?"

"Of course."

They get to their feet, Carmen's following an invisible path to the door while Jenny's stay rooted to the floor next to the couch.

„Jenny?"

„Yes?"

She smiles. „I want us to be friends again. No matter what happens with me and Shane."

There are tears welling in the writer's eyes. "I'd like that very much."

The author hugs her and even if they were never the real deal, she had been the first one to comfort her when she had last felt the rug pulled out from under her feet.

The cool night air caresses her face when she steps out onto the porch and Carmen takes a moment to look up at the sky. A few hours more and the indigo would make way for dawn.

Her engine makes her jump, the assault on her ears fading as her headlights illuminate the street.

She can just make out the shadow against the side wall of the house and with it the faint, intermittent glow of a lit cigarette that falls to the ground and is crushed beneath a pair of Converse. 

* * *

Jenny rests her chin in the palm of her hand, her elbow on the kitchen table next to her laptop. "You know Carmen would have dropped everything if you had asked her out months before you finally did it, right? She never would have cheated on me, but let's be honest, she probably would have ditched me the second you showed any interest. She was so head over fucking heels in love with you, Shane."

She lights another cigarette, the flame licking at her index finger. "Was?"

She doesn't trust herself to say any more without her voice cracking.

"So much shit has happened, I don't think she knows what to feel right now. You don't."

Her roommate narrows her eyes. "Do you?"

Shane bites into her toast, eyes fixed on the plate. "I know I feel like shit."

Her room mate is neither convinced nor sympathetic as she rolls her eyes. "You know that's not what I mean, don't play dumb."

She empties her espresso shot with one gulp and takes a drag from her cigarette, the skin below her fingernails itching. "I don’t have time to deal with this right now and I won't bother her again. If I don't hear from her-"

She fills her mouth with the rest of her breakfast. From the way Jenny's expression changes from annoyance to bashfulness, she knows she will not have to finish the thought to make herself clear. Either Carmen is going to reach out, in whatever small manner, or Shane's wish is going to remain unfulfilled with nothing she can do about it.

Then there's the issue of Shay to be considered. She still has one day off from Wax left, which she means to use to settle his enrollment into school. It's her best guess that word of mouth has travelled quickly enough that by the time she greets her first client on Wednesday, her colleagues won't bother asking how her honeymoon went with a wink here or a crude insinuation there.

Her brother has proven to be a quiet kid, comparatively. He still won't actually speak to her unless he is asked a question, but he has told her about his nightmares which filled her with a curious feeling of dread that she never would have thought herself capable of. She has told herself she is going to protect him as best she can. No way is her father ruining another one of his children in the face of a suitcase of money and a blonde with fake tits.

Shane would have asked Bette or Tina for advice, admittedly lost concerning life with children, but her friends have shown themselves to still be apprehensive about her return, the blonde moreso than her former partner. The brunette has had more fuckups to fall back on, which probably explain why she greets her with a wry smirk these days in contrast to Tina's open distaste.

Still, her meeting with the school's principal could have gone worse, in retrospect, as well as the parent-teacher meeting that has her chugging apirin by the end of the night - however, it calms her to hear that he is already starting to make friends.

Her day is made even more interesting than the mere prospect of asking Bette the favor of letting him and Jared play in her pool the next day when she spots a familiar face exiting the Planet just as she is about to get an afternoon snack. 

She freezes. "Carmen."

Her ex-fiancee seems unpertrubed, a wide smile appearing on her face as she greets Shay, who in turn uncrosses his arms in front of his chest and almost grins in return as recognition hits. 

"Hey, Shane."

Her hands descend into the pockets of her jeans of their own accord, her fingers gripping the denim in desperation to compose her thoughts. She suggests Shay go inside and find Kit and order whatever food he wants, which he follows with enthusiasm. She'd just follow him in a minute as this shouldn't take long. Yet she mulls over her words before she opens her mouth to ask, "I thought- You haven't been here for a while, right? I just-"

She lifts a hand from her hip, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, her curls especially striking against her bright pink crop top. "I'm not going to hide from you or the others anymore."

"I never meant-"

"I know. Not that I ever planned to stay cooped up in my mother's house with my tail between my legs anyway. But I won't avoid awesome places in West Hollywood as a whole like the plague just because you might be there." She chuckles. "Besides, Kit has the best coffee there is. It's worth the drive."

Her gaze is drawn to the bag in the other woman's hand. "Delivery for Arianna Huffington?"

"Oh, I haven't worked for her in a while, but yes, I have to get back to work. My lunch break will be over in twenty minutes."

"I don’t want to hold you up." She says quickly enough to swallow a few syllables, feeling especially awkward.

Carmen shrugs. "It's fine. Before I go, can I just say that-" and the sharp intake of breath in the hesitant pause shouldn't make Shane feel the way it does but she can't help it, "I appreciate what you said."

"What exactly?" She has to ask. The constant repeat of their last conversation that has been on her mind evoke many instances where a justified emotion would be anger. Appreciation, she is not so sure about.

"Well, maybe it's more about what you didn’t. You didn’t ask for forgiveness and expect that to fix everthing. You said you were going to back off."

Shane raises her hands in surrender. "And I mean it! Look, I'll just go find Shay and-"

"Can I come over to your place tonight?"

The air catches in her throat and she thinks she can hear the roaring of her pulse in her ears. Her mouth has fallen open in amazement and shock and there is something spreading in her chest that feels like happiness.

"I still have a few things that I haven't gotten to pick up from the house yet. Mostly DJ equipment."

She doesn’t know what she expected, but her mouth is dry when she nods. "Yeah, sure, whenever is good for you."

Carmen thanks her before storming to the other side of the street in a hurry, waving to her with a shout that she would see her at about six in the evening. Shane watches her until she turns the corner and sighs, searching her wallet for money to pay for whatever Kit has cooked up for her brother's lunch.

Shay is happily barricaded in what used to be her room with the television when the door bell rings later on.

Shane takes a swig fom her beer and gets up to open the door, since Max and Jenny have decided to go out and presumably won't return until the early hours of the morning. 

The bitter taste on her tongue grounds her when the door opens to leave her face to face with Carmen.

She is wearing a sundress covered in flowers, teeth showing easily in a smile that seems very much real, almost as if she is actually glad to see her. 

"Thanks for this, again. I know you have a lot of things to work through right now."

Shane uneasily shifts her weight from one foot to the other, one hand still grasping the beer bottle while the other comes up to scratch the back of her neck. Her voice is even more raspy than usual when she speaks again. She really needs to cut down on the number of daily cigarettes.

"No problem. Can I give you anything? Anything to drink?" 

A silent shake of the head. "I'm good. Um, my stuff should be in Jenny's old shed, I think."

She sets the beer bottle on the kitchen table, her limbs heavy. Better to get this over with soon, she supposes.

"Come along. If it gets too much I'll help you carry it all out."

The armful of cables and vinyls and tapes feels wrong, since she can still picture the two of them taking all of Carmen's belongings and arranging them around the house until they were as much of a fixture as if they had always occupied that space.

She wants to say something, ask her, try for another attempt at an explanation, perhaps, but the only phrase to pass over her lips is an inquiry whether she has her car with her.

The door is within arm's reach when Carmen catches sight of Shay's newly purchased school supplies strewn across the living room next to the couch and carefully sets down her equipment. Her head is bent downwards, her hair shielding her face like a curtain.

"How are you doing? With Shay, I mean."

Shane hesitates, eyes alternatively fixing on the tantilizing glimmer of the metal door knob and her ex-fiancee. 

She follows her example and relocates her burden from her arms to the floor, careful not to trip over the cables as she crosses the length of the room to approach the table to take a last drink from her beer bottle. 

"It's okay, for now, but I can't lie. I don’t know what the fuck I'm doing. He's my brother, but we don't even know each other. I am basically a stranger to him, except he's stuck with me." A bitter laugh rattles through her chest. "Do you know how hard it is to get a kid enrolled in school without having any of his official documents on hand? Ah, fuck."

She combs through her hair with her hands, ripping out singular strands along the process as the pressure on her scalp increases. Breathing through her nose is challenging as she remembers the huge bill that will await her come the end of the month. It had not been her plan to vent to her of all people, knowing she didn’t exactly present a positive association for the other woman. She should be delirious with elation that they are even having this conversation.

Carmen is staring at her, arms loosely hanging by her side and face drawn. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Shane snorts. "I'm not that much of a shitty person to complain to you about how much my life sucks right now. I'm happy you haven't punched me."

The amusement she expects falls flat as she furrows her brows and crosses her arms over her chest instead. "Shay is an innocent child, Shane. It's not about you. He needs someone to take responsibility for him the way your father and his mother never could."

She exhales, checking her pockets for a cigarette in vain. "I really need to get my shit together."

Carmen raises an eyebrow, the gesture infinitely more telling than a sarcastic comment.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer. Do you have any more of that beer?"

Shane returns with a sixpack, frees two bottles from its confines and clinks her own together with Carmen's in a mockery of a toast, but her voice is earnest when she asks, 

"Do you have any advice for me?"


End file.
